Skills and employability in China and Mongolia

Embroideress at work. China

See more photos on China and Mongolia areas of work in ILO Flickr photo library. China Skills development to enhance employability is an area of vital importance to China. The introduction of new technology to sustain the growth of enterprises requires ever higher skill levels. Workers need to be trained and retrained to produce more value added products and services in a globalizing economy. Currently, enterprises are facing shortages of such skilled workers on the one hand, while young university graduates are having difficulty in getting jobs on the other. The Chinese government is keen on reshaping the national skills development system in order to reduce the skills mismatch, promote waged and self employment for young people and mobilize different ways of learning to cope with the need for highly skilled workers.

Mongolia

In Mongolia, surveys of Mongolian employers revealed the key issues in enhancing the employability of Mongolian workers. Improvement should be made on basic education and reduce the drop-out rate. For secondary and tertiary education as well as vocational training, better link should be established between the education/training programme and skills and knowledge required by enterprises to avoid mismatch and make smooth transition from school to work. Well-paying jobs in emerging industries like mining, construction and food-processing require strong technical and vocational skills. The government has been addressing the employability issues in a comprehensive way by creating a national council on vocational training, skills standards and certification, involving key stakeholders to support skills development and link it to the demands of the labour market.

The ILO response

Professional staff and skills experts provide technical advice at the regional level through ILO Decent Work Technical Team (DWT) for East and South-East Asia and the Pacific and the ILO Country Office for China and Mongolia. Special emphasis is placed on skills for improved productivity, employment growth and development. In Mongolia, the technical cooperation project on Promoting Livelihoods for Persons with Disabilities has been making progress. The project aims at providing possibilities for increased income levels of people with disabilities through enhancing their skills and employability as well as improving the impact of the legal framework for promotion of employment of people with disabilities.